::
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
(Recommended by Roberta Pennington)
We are just two people. Not that much separates us.
Not
nearly as much as I'd thought. (page 451)
People are reading it everywhere, but those of us who know the
geography intimately have an edge as we read The Help. We have experienced Fortification Street in Jackson
and can visualize the scene...
At Millsaps College in April, Kathryn Stockett said that her book was
rejected 50 times before being published. How thankful we are that it was
finally put into print!
Taking care of white babies. That's what I do. As the voice of Abilene opens the story
simply and truthfully, we are drawn in.
Abilene and other African-American women who are hired to help in the
homes of white families coalesce with Skeeter Phelan in telling their
stories. The telling of their stories is a bold, dangerous, prophetic
act.
We are prime members and we deserve a prime spot. We who read hear things we have often heard and see
things we have often seen in our homes and churches and communities. We
find ourselves in the story's telling. In doing so, we are moved to
repentance and to reconciliation, to laughter and to tears, to truth-telling
and to hope for the future. Our histories matter, regardless of the color
of our skin. Even as it entertains us, The Help moves us to acknowledge our past, whether heroic
or tragic, memorable or regrettable.
The movie is being filmed now in the Delta, so waste no time in
reading this book, take no short cut straight to the movie. Movies are
never as good as books, never able to capture it all, never as expressive as
our imaginations evoked by stories well told.
::
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,
by Rebecca Skloot
(Recommended by Vicki Baldwin)
Her cells have saved our lives and healed our diseases and given us
vast knowledge. Scientists know her as HeLa. Her family was unaware
of the use of her cells until 20 years after her death.
Henrietta Lacks was a poor tobacco farmer, descended from slaves,
diagnosed with cancer and treated at Johns Hopkins. Her cells had a
phenomenal capacity to reproduce themselves, answering the hope and need of
medical researchers. They are the first "immortal" cells grown in
culture, continuing to live now, sixty years after her death. They have
been bought and sold by the billions as scientists have used them to unlock
secrets of cancer, viruses, effects of the atomic bomb and other mysteries.
Rebecca Skloot takes us with her on a remarkable journey, intertwined
with the scientists who use the cells and the family of Henrietta who only
belatedly discover the contributions of her cells. Ethical questions are
obvious: If her cells have been used so widely by so many, why do her
children and grandchildren live today without health care?
::
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese
I love this book. It is a wonderful story well-told and artfully
written, a story of twin boys born conjoined to a nun in a mission station in
Ethiopia. They are separated successfully yet there lives are profoundly
and inextricably intertwined. They grow to become practitioners of
medicine, the art of healing.
The title of the book comes from the Hippocratic oath: I
shall not cut for stone even in patients where disease is manifest. I
will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this
art.
It is a story of kinship, constancy, conflict, reconciliation,
calling, unfolding providence. Calling is strong in the characters of
this novel. Calling is a gift and a burden, a sorrow and a glory.
We are inextricably bound to one another, whether we enter this life
alone or conjoined. We have opportunity to injure one another and to
bless one another. I have returned often in thought to this story since
reading it early this year. It continues to teach me about this wonderful
yet heartbreaking world. It continues to remind me that this calling we
bear is glorious yet fragile, demanding our tender care.
Read this one and be blessed!
|
